Top Gun: Combat Zones

Top Gun: Combat Zones might be the first next-generation console game from the Titus-owned developer Digital Integration, but it's not the company's first-ever flight combat game. The UK-based company has a long history of developing top-notch flight simulations for the PC including F/A-18E Super Hornet, Apache Longbow, F-16 Fighting Falcon and Hind. With Top Gun on PlayStation 2, though, Digital Integration has diverged a bit from its simulation roots and has crafted a more console geared flight combat game that offers more arcade-styled action than its PC efforts.

Gameplay Top Gun offers two basic modes of play, including the Game mode and Quick Start mode, with Game being a story-based scenario and the meat and potatoes of the game. In this mode, players get the chance to take to the air in three different military areas from the '70s to the present. Beginning with Era 1 you must first tackle five training missions before you head into the war zone for some actual mission based air-to-air and air-to-ground combat.

Completing the goals of each mission will open subsequent missions and completing an Era will open up the next. There are more than 30 missions in all that take place over locations such as Southeast Asia, Northern Russian and even the Miramar base that was made famous in the movie that this game got its name from. The missions themselves are fairly standard as far as flight combat games go; with a nice mix of mission goals that include everything from the very generic destroy all targets to more elaborate ones that you have doing things such as providing air support for an evacuation.

And along the way, you'll get to fly some advanced fighter jets beginning with the F-14 Tomcat that you get to fly at the game's onset and continuing with fighters such as the F-18 Hornet, F-22 Raptor, F-4 Phantom, JSF, YF-23, Osprey and Harrier. And once you unlock these fighters, they'll be available in the game's Quick Start mode that lets you jump into missions with customizable settings like the degree of threat from enemy craft and location of the battles.

The game's control can be best described as an arcade-styled flight simulation. It has some flight simulation roots when using the normal control mode in that the control stick is used similarly to a joystick in a real-life fighter jet in that pressing up and down controls the pitch of the craft, while pressing left rolls its left and pressing right rolls it right.

However, the control is much more forgiving than you'd find in a real simulation and the game is really easy to pick-up and play and offers fast-paced, arcade-geared action. Likewise, beyond the basic goals in each of the missions, players are also given point scores reminiscent of old-school videogames where point totals were more important than just beating a game. Your points will add up while you simply stay alive and shoot down and hit enemy targets and bonus points are even awarded for doing things such as flying close to the ground. This point-scoring system along with the 30-plus challenging story mode missions and numerous Quick Start possibilities makes for a very long-lasting and fairly deep flight combat game.

While all of this sounds fine and dandy, Top Gun suffers from a few substantial flaws. First, the control suffers from a horrible navigational system. The map, which has two levels of zoom, only tracks the enemy craft on a strictly two-dimensional plane, and doesn't give you any indication of where the targeted craft is in relation to you on a vertical plane. Thusly, you're forced to locate enemy craft visually, which just doesn't work that well because you're not given a good way to look around in your cockpit as a real-life fighter pilot could in a plane. With the game leaning towards a more arcade-ish style of play, there really should be arrows or some other indicators to help you figure out where the other fighters are in relation to your jet.

Additionally, the missions, while varied in structure and often fairly challenging, don't offer much in the way of a reason to be fighting. The pre- and post-mission screens are rather boring, the presentation is very generic and there's not really a story that gives you a reason to fight. Pretty disappointing considering that the game has the license of Paramount's blockbuster, Top Gun.

To be completely blunt, the game offers the base of what could be a very fun game, but just doesn't back it up with the fun part. If you happen to get hooked on the point scoring aspect of the game, just trying to beat your own best time or that of a friend might push you to play the game, but this isn't usually enough for most people and just doesn't cut it for me.

Graphics Much like the gameplay, the game's visuals are adequate but not at all inspiring. The detail of some of the background elements are pretty good and each of the fighter jets are nicely modeled and come complete with realistically animated parts, but there's nothing here that really pushes the PlayStation 2 beyond what we've already seen and we've actually seen a lot better in Namco's Ace Combat 4.

Sound The re-occurring theme of this review is mediocre, yet completely unmoving. This can also be applied to the game's audio. The sounds of the jet engines, missile fire and explosions are good enough, but the music is somewhat disappointing. You'd think with the Top Gun name on the box that you would get some upbeat and moving tunes to listen to while you're shooting down hordes of enemy craft, but instead you'll get some goofy elevator music. None of the licensed songs from the movie soundtrack can be found here and as far as I can tell, the main Top Gun theme is completely non-existent. No Danger Zone for you!

The Verdict

My biggest problem with Top Gun Combat Zones is that it's not Ace Combat 4. Maybe if I had never played Namco's brilliant air combat game that pimps this game in every single category from graphics to presentation and, most importantly, gameplay, might interest level in playing through this game might have been a little higher. We'll never know though, because I played Ace Combat 4 and after playing it, I honestly don't feel any desire to play this game. It has all of the basic requirements of a good game in the genre, but it's just missing a soul. In case you haven't realized my point just yet, if you need a flight combat game, you should get the one from Namco and just leave this one on the store shelf.